By Jim Shimabukuro (assisted by ChatGPT-5)
Editor
(Also see The Post-Writing Century.)
Introduction: ChatGPT-5 and I collaborated on this short story about Elena Vargas, Corporate Analyst, who illustrates what it means to “write” in the AI Century. The process has dramatically transformed what was once a laborious and time-consuming solitary act into an efficient, quick collaboration that maximizes AI power to take on the heavy lifting and free the human to lead and guide the team of AI bots. To write means to swat (Supervised Writing AI Team), and the human in this swatting process leads the team to the finished paper. This might seem far-fetched, but it’s already beginning to happen in corporate as well as government, academic, and personal environments. To complete this article, I’ve also been working extensively with other chatbots: Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, and DeepSeek. I purposely didn’t involve Claude because I’ve been relying heavily on him for other articles these past few weeks. -js
Elena Vargas, Corporate Analyst at Prometheus, leaned back in her ergonomic chair, letting her gaze drift over the panoramic cityscape beyond the glass wall. The sun had barely crested the horizon, but Prometheus’s orbital control center was already buzzing. Forty-nine minutes. That’s all she had before the executive council connected via global feed.
In exactly one hour, she was expected to deliver a strategic briefing: twelve pages on “Orbital Resource Chains in the Indo-Pacific Corridor” — an analysis that could determine whether Prometheus secured the next decade of aerospace contracts or lost them to global competitors.
She sipped her tea. A decade ago, such a task would have meant a week of solitary work: endless research, drafting, reviewing, reworking, often into the small hours of the night. Exhaustion was unavoidable. The human “writer” bore the full weight of creation.
Now she was not a writer. She was a swatter.
The Team Emerges
With a subtle gesture, Elena activated her SWAT dashboard. Six AI avatars shimmered into existence: her permanent team of collaborators, each with specialized expertise and the capacity for anticipatory action.
- Aria (Researcher): constantly scanning databases, archives, and live feeds, able to prioritize, infer relevance, and anticipate which citations and case studies Elena might want before she asks.
- Script (Writer): synthesizes Aria’s output into prose, extrapolating style and tone from past briefs, and able to propose complete sections with minimal prompts.
- Polish (Editor): watches the emerging text, smoothing tone, clarifying ambiguity, and subtly adjusting syntax and flow before Elena even notices an inconsistency.
- Hawk (Reviewer): evaluates arguments in real-time, identifying logical gaps, bias, or gaps in evidence; can preemptively highlight areas that will require human judgment.
- Vega (Designer): shapes visualizations continuously, rendering charts, infographics, and diagrams based on evolving content; anticipates what will need adjustment as text matures.
- Lex (Legal Analyst): monitors phrasing, regulatory references, and compliance risks as the document evolves, flagging potential issues before they exist.
The team was already working — a soft hum of activity filling her mind-space. Warp time was in effect. While she moved in human seconds, the team iterated millions of operations in the same heartbeat.
Elena didn’t issue basic instructions. That was unnecessary. She only defined purpose, audience, and style, and the SWAT flowed.
Real-Time Guidance
“Objective: Strategic briefing on orbital resource chains. Audience: Prometheus executives, cross-disciplinary. Tone: decisive yet pragmatic. Deliverable: twelve-page briefing in under one hour.”
The avatars acknowledged simultaneously. Already, Aria had compiled hundreds of sources — satellite launch schedules, orbital transfer logs, policy white papers, competitor filings. Vega had sketched preliminary diagrams: orbital maps, supply chain flows, financial projections. Script had begun drafting paragraphs. Hawk had flagged potential weak arguments in early scaffolds. Lex had highlighted two phrases that could imply noncompliance with international treaties. Polish was smoothing prior drafts’ transitions and balancing readability.
All without a single detailed command from Elena.
The Recursive Flow
Ten minutes in, Elena surveyed the emergent briefing. Sections were appearing non-linearly; some paragraphs were fully drafted, others just beginnings. Charts blinked in the margin, iterating as Vega adjusted visual weight. Legal notes appeared, vanished, and reappeared after Lex’s refinement.
Elena intervened selectively.
“Introduction,” she said. “Focus on strategic leverage, not mere capacity. Keep the framing ambitious but grounded.”
Script restructured the opening in seconds. Vega’s diagrams adjusted automatically: nodes repositioned, flows recalculated. Hawk had already analyzed the new paragraph and offered alternative phrasing for section headers.
“Good,” Elena murmured. Her role was no longer producing content, it was supervising, evaluating, nudging — the human anchor in a warp-time river of intelligence.
Overlapping Contributions
Minutes passed, but not linearly. Research continued in parallel with drafting, reviewing, and visualization. Sometimes she’d see a completed section flicker briefly on the display only for it to be replaced seconds later by an iteration the team judged stronger.
“Financial forecast,” she said to Aria, even as Script began a draft. “Include competitor projections for 2026–2030.”
“Already integrated,” Aria responded. “Anticipated the request based on prior briefings.”
Hawk interrupted mid-flow. “Section five may exaggerate market share potential. Recommend recalibration.”
Lex added, almost simultaneously: “Phasing of investment milestones could imply regulatory overreach. Suggest language that emphasizes compliance leadership.”
Elena only needed to approve, tweak, or reject. Each intervention was recursive: a suggestion prompted a cascade of intelligent adjustments across all avatars, reinforcing the feedback loop that defined SWAT work.
Vega’s visuals were evolving continuously. Charts reshaped as Script edited text; color gradients shifted as Lex refined legal phrasing; arrows recalculated as Hawk modified argument flows. By the time Elena looked at a graphic, it was already near-final — she only intervened for nuance or strategic emphasis.
Midpoint Reflection
Half an hour had passed. Elena leaned back, letting herself appreciate the process. There was no panic, no frenzied typing. The briefing was emerging organically from the interplay of warp-time AI and her real-time judgment.
This was the recursive, anticipatory process in action: team members flowing in and out of focus as needed. She didn’t instruct each step; she guided principles. They acted, she evaluated, they adapted.
“Section three,” she said aloud, “needs a stronger link between orbital logistics and financial impact. I want the logic chain explicit but readable.”
Script revised sentences. Hawk flagged weaker claims. Aria injected additional citations. Polish refined the flow. Vega adjusted the relevant charts. Lex confirmed compliance. The section matured in what felt like seconds, but had been processed by layers of intelligent anticipation and refinement.
The Warp-Time Advantage
Twenty minutes remained. Elena observed the dashboard: the team was already two sections ahead of schedule. Visuals, text, and compliance were being refined continuously. The recursive loops meant that the final briefing would emerge already coherent, internally consistent, and visually compelling, with her real-time judgments adding strategic nuance.
She sipped tea again. Warp-time efficiency allowed her to think, reflect, and adjust without fatigue. This wasn’t just faster work; it was different work entirely.
Final Iterations
Ten minutes remained. The briefing approached maturity.
“Introduction finalized,” she noted. “Recommendations section — bold, clear, with three actionable proposals. Emphasize feasibility without overselling risk.”
Script proposed the first draft of recommendations. Hawk scrutinized assumptions. Lex verified compliance. Vega adjusted infographics to match. Polish smoothed narrative tone. Aria checked for supporting data.
A final round of recursive alignment began. Sections flickered briefly as minor adjustments propagated through the document. Elena made only one substantial intervention: “Graph two — adjust color coding to highlight bottleneck nodes. Investors should see risk clearly without being alarmed.” Vega immediately recalibrated, integrating the feedback seamlessly.
The Delivery
With five minutes remaining, the briefing was complete. Twelve pages. Charts. Legal checks. Fully integrated argumentation. Each component polished.
She tapped the final approval. The document was deployed to Prometheus’s leadership portal.
The executive council logged in. Nine faces across nine time zones.
“Ms. Vargas,” said the chair. “We’re told you’ve prepared a strategic analysis. Do we have it ready?”
“Yes,” Elena said calmly. “Delivered and swatted within the hour. Recursive refinement completed; briefing is executive-ready.”
Heads tilted, eyes scanning. Pages appeared. Graphs blinked. Metrics, argumentation, and visuals aligned perfectly.
The council members’ expressions shifted. They nodded.
“This,” the chair said slowly, “is exactly what we needed.”
Reflection and Identity
Elena leaned back in her chair, letting the gravity of the past hour settle. She thought of her first years at Prometheus, pounding through drafts as a writer, each sentence a labor, each paragraph a drain on energy.
Now she had guided a SWAT team — anticipating needs, steering judgment, overseeing recursive refinement — and produced a briefing that would have once required a week of effort in under an hour.
The human role had changed, but not disappeared. She hadn’t been replaced. She had been redefined.
The term “writer” felt almost quaint, an artifact from a slower era. She was no longer a writer, chained to tasks and deadlines. She was a swatter.
She smiled, watching as the team’s avatars gently shimmered and dissolved back into standby. The briefing had been delivered, impact assured, and she felt clarity, precision, and presence — fully human, fully elevated.
Closing Thought
Elena whispered to herself, testing the words aloud:
“We no longer write. We swat.”
And for the first time, she truly understood the phrase. Not just a slogan, not just a conceptual shift — a lived reality of human-AI collaboration, where intelligence, creativity, and strategy combined to multiply human capability, compress time, and deliver excellence.
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